Video and data surveillance systems are commonly used by individuals, businesses, and governments to remotely monitor activity. Increasingly, the Internet is being used as a method of accessing, monitoring and controlling remote surveillance systems. For businesses, video and data surveillance systems are frequently used to monitor one or more business processes and data sources.
Data sources include access controls, RFID tag readers, fire alarm systems, contact switches, motion detectors, environmental monitors, points of sale (POS) where transactions take place and other business information systems. Surveillance systems are capable of collecting data from data sources for purposes of monitoring business processes, quality assurance, safety, security, and fraud prevention. At POS locations, surveillance systems are capable of collecting transaction-related information. For example, if a cash register location is of interest, the surveillance system could capture a video image (plus audio, if desired) of the location as well as cash register data corresponding to the date, time, persons and events that are being recorded video-graphically. Other places of interest, including delivery docks, dressing rooms, doorways, money handling areas, mechanical rooms, data centers, construction sites, customer service areas and many more, are also monitored by such surveillance systems.
As the number of surveillance locations increase within a single business site, and as the number of separate locations increase for a particular business (for example, when the business owns multiple stores), the need to manage the collection and effective use of surveillance information increases correspondingly. In particular the complexity and manual steps required to use the system, ensure it is operating correctly, perform maintenance and upgrade the surveillance system grows with the number of remote locations.
Internet-based video, audio and data collection systems available today have many limitations. As depicted in FIG. 1, network compatibility issues arise because such systems often require each location to have a static Internet Protocol (IP) address rather than a dynamic one, thereby resulting in substantial Internet Support Provider (ISP) expenses. Additionally, such systems require the computer network in which the video, audio and data collection system is installed to be configured to accommodate the specific digital video recorder (DVR) that is implemented in the system. This configuration step is a costly manual procedure that requires a skilled worker.
Today's IP network video surveillance systems claim to eliminate the need for a video recorder at the remote site. This is often cited as a superior solution to installing a video recorder. However this solution requires large amounts of bandwidth, both at the remote location if multiple cameras are used and at a data center where the video is aggregated. The amount of bandwidth at the remote location normally exceeds the capacity of standard broadband Internet connections. To accommodate the bandwidth requirements, expensive leased line circuits must be purchased. The cost for this bandwidth is often higher that a business is prepared to pay when there are many remote locations involved. The only way to deal with this limitation is to install a video storage device at each of the businesses remote locations, thus removing the benefit of IP cameras without a video recorder at the remote site.
Often such systems offer limited POS support because, for example, only a printer emulation mode is used, which delivers a limited portion of the entire data set that has been collected. Another limitation of such systems is that the data is poorly integrated with video. For example, many systems allow only video (excluding other data) information to be exported from the system. Other systems overlay data graphically over the video, losing the ability to search and report on the data collected. Once exported, access to the Video and possibly the data are no longer controlled by the surveillance system.
From the system perspective, current state-of-the-art video, audio and data collection systems are limited because they comprise local systems that store surveillance information locally, they operate with static software. This solution is referred to as a standalone DVR. The standalone DVR normally requires a thick client solution—an approach that requires the installation of software on each user's computer in order to access video, audio and data collected at each standalone DVR. The thick client system with standalone video recorders contains no shared component between the many DVR's or the thick clients. This makes aggregating and sharing video, audio and data information very difficult and time consuming for users. In addition, such a video, audio and data collection system requires a labor intensive process of viewing data one location at a time. Moreover, standalone DVR's and current thick client systems are expensive to place in the field because such systems require management of configuration, security and maintenance of the thick client software installed on each user's computer and at each DVR. This management is labor intensive because it must be performed on each user system and each standalone DVR, one at a time. The number of users can be substantial. In many businesses there is a desire for many employees to use the system, often exceeding the number of locations in the business. These limitations increase the complexity and cost of managing the security, software, hardware and installation of the system to the point that in the best case, only a limited number of users are given access to the system. In the worst case, the overall cost outweighs the benefits and the system is not installed.
In light of these limitations, there is a need for a thin client network architecture for a video, audio and data collection, monitoring and access system that links its users to remotely collected video, audio and data information and that provides the user comprehensive access to, and control over, the surveillance capabilities installed in remote field locations. A “thin client” is a client computer or client software in a client-server architecture network that depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. Many thin client devices run only Internet browsers or remote desktop software, meaning that all significant processing occurs on the server. Accordingly, a system and method for integrated video, audio and data recording, access, management and control is disclosed.